Abstract
Worldwide, there are various feedstocks such as straws, corn stover, sugarcane bagasse, sweet sorghum bagasse (SSB), grasses, leaves, whey permeate, household organic waste, and food waste (FW) that can be converted to valuable biofuels such as butanol. For the present studies, an economic analysis was performed to compare butanol production from three feedstocks (SSB; FW; and yellow top presscake, YTP or YT) using a standard process and an advanced integrated process design. The total plant capacity was set at 170,000–171,000 metric tons of total acetone butanol ethanol (ABE) per year (99,300 tons of just butanol per year). Butanol production from SSB typically requires pretreatment, separate hydrolysis, fermentation, and product recovery (SHFR). An advanced process was developed in which the last three steps were combined into a single unit operation for simultaneous saccharification, fermentation, and recovery (SSFR). For the SHFR and SSFR plants, the total capital investments were estimated as $213.72 × 106 and $198.16 × 106, respectively. It was further estimated that the minimum butanol selling price (using SSB as a feedstock) for the two processes were $1.14/kg and $1.05/kg. Therefore, SSFR lowered the production cost markedly compared to that of the base case. Butanol made using FW had an estimated minimum selling price of only $0.42/kg. This low selling price is because the FW to butanol process does not require pretreatment, hydrolysis, and cellulolytic enzymes. For this plant, the total capital investment was projected to be $107.26 × 106. The butanol selling price using YTP as a feedstock was at $0.73/kg and $0.79/kg with total capital investments for SSFR and SHFR of $122.58 × 106 and $132.21 × 106, respectively. In the Results and Discussion section, the availability of different feedstocks in various countries such as Brazil, the European Union, New Zealand, Denmark, and the United States are discussed. Additionally, the use of various microbial strains and product recovery technologies are also discussed.
Highlights
Due to fluctuating gasoline prices, climate change, and other detrimental environmental impacts from burning fossil fuels, developing butanol production using sustainable biomass feedstocks has attracted worldwide interest [1]
We investigated the use of sweet sorghum bagasse (SSB), food waste, and Yellow Top Presscake (YTP) to produce bio-butanol [12,29,31]
An economic analysis of the production of acetone butanol ethanol (ABE), for a plant capacity of $170,000–171,000 tons/year, from SSB suggests that butanol can be produced from this feedstock at a selling price of
Summary
Due to fluctuating gasoline prices, climate change, and other detrimental environmental impacts from burning fossil fuels, developing butanol production using sustainable biomass feedstocks has attracted worldwide interest [1]. Prior to hydrolysis or saccharification, saccharification, fermentation, and recovery were combined using a single reactor, as shown in the SSB would be milled to approximately 0.8–1.0 mm sized particles followed by pretreatment using. In the SHFR process, pretreatment and hydrolysis were performed in butanol recovery continued until all the sugars available in SSB were utilized. In both processes, separate tanks and fermentation and recovery were combined in one reactor. Combined process: Diagram of pretreatment, separate hydrolysis, fermentation, and recovery (SHFR).
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